A continuous PREMs and PROMs Observatory for elective hip and knee arthroplasty: study protocol

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Digital Health
• Patient-Reported Measures

Background:

• Patient-centeredness is a growing focus in healthcare, with patient-reported metrics crucial for improvement.
• Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and patient-reported experience measures (PREMs) are not yet widely collected or integrated in many healthcare systems.
• Elective hip and knee total replacement surgeries are key areas for evaluating patient-centered care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the methodology of an innovative digital observatory in Tuscany, Italy.
• To continuously and longitudinally collect PROMs and PREMs for patients undergoing elective hip and knee total replacement.
• To integrate patient-reported data into the regional healthcare performance evaluation system.

Main Methods:

• A digital observatory collects data via online questionnaires (e.g., Oxford Hip/Knee Score) sent via SMS or email.
• Data are reported in real-time to healthcare professionals and managers on an anonymized, aggregated web platform.
• The study will investigate relationships between PROM trends, patient characteristics, surgical/hospital factors, and PREMs.

Main Results:

• The observatory provides real-time, anonymized, and aggregated patient data.
• The collected data will be used to compute indicators for healthcare performance evaluation.
• Analysis will explore correlations between patient outcomes, experiences, and clinical/demographic factors.

Conclusions:

• The digital observatory facilitates continuous, longitudinal collection of PROMs and PREMs.
• This initiative supports patient-driven healthcare improvements and integrates patient data into performance evaluation.
• The methodology is designed to comply with national and regional data protection guidelines.